Any game with modding potential is inherently better than one without; as you can simply fix what you do not like. For example, In BtS, I disliked the lack of a Poland civ. If it was CiV, I would spend 6 months getting support from devs to make one, another 6 months waiting for it to get around their bureaucracy, and then spend $10 to buy the civ. In BtS, it took me 10 minutes to make my own,it would have been less had I downloaded one of the hundreds of new civs from the C&C section of this very forum.
Civilization 5 Rants Thread
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Brian Shanahan
Permanoob
Capitalism doesn't mix well with quality, because the soal goal of (unfettered) capitalism is :"the lowest qaulity goods possible, at the lowest cost possible, sold at the highest price possible, with as close to a monopoly position as possible".
Needless to say, I have a very dim view of the capitalistic model of economies.
Aaron90495
King
I'm not denying your points, but could you explain how 1UPT limits modding potential? The DLL is out now; isn't that what "unlocks" all that modding potential for CiV?
Jayman1000
Prince
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I think many many players have explained in depth and very thoroughly why 1UPT limits everything. However if I had to put it short, 1UPT sets a limit on everything because if not the map will be flooded by units, for which there are not enough room.
As to the DLL: If it means that someone can modify the AI and the game to handle moving and using stacks I would perhaps begin to alter my opinion a bit. Again I must ask why 1UPT? Why not 5UPT or something equivalent? However, since the game was never designed to handle stacks... who knows..
Absolutely. My last sentence alluded to that. It was incorrectly interpreted as a pejorative statement, but the Jungian personality types are all about different world views.
My world view is highly abstracted, which serves me very well in high tech/scientific endeavors. However, my personality type is a minority type... mostly because mankind's genetics would die off if my type were all there was.
To quote my father, without a short term, there would be no long-term.
Also... the games I have built are REALLY good at modeling things, and have generated some very interesting insights about the world... but they have never been that much fun to play.
FYI... I find MOO III very intriguing. I agree 100% with its design goals. But it is one game that even I found overly abstracted and unable to assess cause and effect.
Naokaukodem
Millenary King
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I don't think auto-embark lame at all. It was a suggestion of mine for a game like Civ4 (yes, with stacks).
Because moving units through water was just a pain in the ass to be frank. You had to 1) build ships, what was requiering time and anticipation (if you don't want to lose too much time building those things, which in the best of the case was resulting in an "appreciable" delay whatever you did, you had to anticipate, it is to say starting building ships before having your army ready, that was a frustrating mini- coordination game that most of the time failed more or less as I just said) 2) bring your armies nears them which generated a lot of clicks 3) put your army in them, with much more clicks and with the affiliated bugs 4) Still protect your ships with another stack of defensive naval units 5) move your stacks in the ocean 6) disenbark 7) Unlike Civ2, a lighthouse or port wasn't giving your coastal cities +1 in every water square, so having strong naval-productive cities was a major concern especially when your previous and earlier concerns had nothing to do with it.
In Civ5, you can point any piece of land through water and have your units pop out there with one click. Of course it is still not perfect because 1) moving your units one by one is still a pain out of sea as it is inland 2) the pathfinding will send your units in places like city states territory your at war with 3) units are unprotected which is a major pain
So it's not the fault of the idea, it's the fault of how poorly it have been exectuted.
Because moving units through water was just a pain in the ass to be frank. You had to 1) build ships, what was requiering time and anticipation (if you don't want to lose too much time building those things, which in the best of the case was resulting in an "appreciable" delay whatever you did, you had to anticipate, it is to say starting building ships before having your army ready, that was a frustrating mini- coordination game that most of the time failed more or less as I just said) 2) bring your armies nears them which generated a lot of clicks 3) put your army in them, with much more clicks and with the affiliated bugs 4) Still protect your ships with another stack of defensive naval units 5) move your stacks in the ocean 6) disenbark 7) Unlike Civ2, a lighthouse or port wasn't giving your coastal cities +1 in every water square, so having strong naval-productive cities was a major concern especially when your previous and earlier concerns had nothing to do with it.
In Civ5, you can point any piece of land through water and have your units pop out there with one click. Of course it is still not perfect because 1) moving your units one by one is still a pain out of sea as it is inland 2) the pathfinding will send your units in places like city states territory your at war with 3) units are unprotected which is a major pain
So it's not the fault of the idea, it's the fault of how poorly it have been exectuted.
The QC
Quietly Confident
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I seem to remember that the limit on the number of units in a tile was already moddable. I am mistaken? I distinctly remember someone made a 2UPT mod at some point. If that was all in my head I will feel awkward...
It's possible:
GlobalDefines.xml
<Row Name="PLOT_UNIT_LIMIT">
<Value>1</Value>
</Row>
The issue is UI & mechanincs; there's no UI function to show multiple units in a stack, nor is there any stack mechanics (group up; move; attack etc). The first could be modded I think, the later is probably impossible to change. The game is build around 1UPT. Thus a large part of the combat code needs to be rewritten .
rschissler
King
Yeah, it's too much strategy and having to think ahead.
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With Auto-Embark the cost of making a unit amphibious is completely ignored. This has ramifications on water maps to one's Grand Strategy in terms of the question of how many transport type units to build which uses up many Hammers. There is also the logistical question of how to get the land units on the transport units and those to the front. Then one has to consider building naval ships to defend the transports and the logistics of getting those to the right places at the right time.
All of this fun goes away with Auto-Embark and Auto-Disembark. I can understand some players may not like Grand Strategy and Logistics, but without it all one has is Military Strategy and Tactics. That is simply one reason that many players do not like Civ V. Civilization is a game where Grand Strategy must be "king", otherwise what's the point in leading a Civ.
Sun Tzu Wu
All of this fun goes away with Auto-Embark and Auto-Disembark. I can understand some players may not like Grand Strategy and Logistics, but without it all one has is Military Strategy and Tactics. That is simply one reason that many players do not like Civ V. Civilization is a game where Grand Strategy must be "king", otherwise what's the point in leading a Civ.
Sun Tzu Wu
Jayman1000
Prince
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Problem is the AI don't now how to treat stacks. Another issue is when two friendly units from two friendly civs cross path you'll have crashes and/or other starange instabilities. If you know of a way to enable working stacks in CiV, that the AI know how to handle I'd be very interested. Until further, however, I'll remain highly skeptical of the abilities of CiV.
Jayman1000
Prince
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Yeah, it's too much strategy and having to think ahead.
Okay, don't think. Nobody think. No ideas. No theories. No nothing.
So Grand Strategy is about putting individual units into other individual units...
That must be quite the Grand Unit you have there Sun Tzu!
Ghpstage
Deity
Impressive straw man there!
The grand strategy part is using the planning, building and positioning of the transports that enable the invasion and, to a lesser extent, effective use of them to reinforce. As opposed to civ 5 where apart from a few warship, invading a continent on the other side of the world requires no additional investment than attacking a neighbour.
Now theres no reason that it couldn't have been abstracted in a different way that got rid of transports without removing the entirity of the strategic elements involved in overseas invasions, but they didn't even try, the only aim was to wedge the 15 foot square of 1 UPT into the 3 foot wide circle of civ.
My WWII mod is working fine with a custom 2 UPT mechanism. AFAIK the AI have no problem with stacks, base movement code is still coming from civ4. As mentioned the problem is for the human players as you'll have to write a new UI component to handle (big) stacks movement. Which is not impossible.
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Here's an article that explains what "Grand Strategy" is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_strategy
If you weren't so fixated on your 1UPT world view, you might be able to understand what I'm talking about.
Sun Tzu Wu
I didn't even think of that. I bought Galactic Civilizations II day of release. Installed it, found out it had civ III style movement in which friendly units could not occupy the same square, and quit. Never played again.
1upt for the fail.
Civking5
Prince
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Totally agree with you. The stupidity of the some of the argument and reasoning here is astonishing.
Moderator Action: This is the damn rants thread.
Leave it and never come back. Thanks.
Completely agree with you. To exemplify what we are talking about, allow me to refer to a game I'm playing at the moment with the excellent PAE (Pie's Ancient Europe) mod.
I'm playing Rome and have most of Italy, but Hannibal occupies Sicily and Sardinia. Islands which should be rightfully mine, so Caesar thinks. So I get my army ready and declare war. Naturally though, Hannibal has a strong naval force, so coordinating and executing the invasions isn't easy at all. I don't have enough time and resources to build ships for my entire army, so I must sail back and forth. But If I land too few units at a time, they get destroyed by the defenders. And which units should I land first that can resist any counter attacks while my stack is still forming? Immediate tension arises and problem-solving is required.
All the time Hannibal is sending his own ships, which not only threaten to harrass my fleet but start pillaging all my fish resources and establishing sea blockades. I can't spare many of my ships to deal with them because I need them to transport the rest of my army hastily, while my already landed units are being harrassed by his archers. More tension and problems to be solved. Furthermore, I must constantly make sure that the cities he approaches with his ships are well enough defended, as he could or could not have his own invasion troops loaded.
A great naval battle it was! Despite the two islands directly neighbouring my land, it took 200 years (~70 turns) to finally conquer the cities, and only under great logistical efforts and severe economical losses, like starvation and unhealthy cities due to the enemy fleet. But in the end it was an accomplishment I could be proud of!
Now of course I would like to punish Hannibal for his resistance by making my way to his main land, specifically Carthage. But it won't be happening any time soon. Too high the logisitcal effort at the moment, too high the costs and risks. The invasion of Carthage will be have to undergo very thorough planning and long, nationwide preparation. Which will again lead to tension and new difficult decisions. These are the scenarios I play Civ for!
Needless to say, all this tension, problem-solving, and also realism, would be unthinkable in an auto-embarkation environment. This, Shushu, is what Sun Tzu means with grand strategy. Of course some may think of the planning and execution of the invasions I describe as tedious. For me this is the heart of the game.
I don't think anyone minds them staying as long as they keep it polite and don't insult others, which Shushu for example is able to do.
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